Dr Richard Blakemore gave this talk as part of an event on ‘Christmas at Sea: 400 Years of the Festive Season Afloat’ on 7 December 2021, organised by the Royal Museums Greenwich and Institute of Historical Research Maritime History & Culture Seminar. We are grateful to the seminar convenors for recording this session, and for their permission to share this video.

Dr Richard Blakemore is a historian and lecturer of the Early Modern Atlantic World at the University of Reading. His research explores the social history of seafarers in the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th centuries. If you would like to find out more about Richard’s work on the maritime world of Early Modern Britain, you can do so in his recent edited collection here.

Additional Readings:

Journal of Edward Barlow, 1656-1703: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/archive/rmgc-object-1129351

Merry Boys of Christmas, 1660: http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/30942/image

Four Choice Carols for Christmas Holidays, 1700: http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/31130/image

On Cromwell and Christmas: https://www.cromwellmuseum.org/cromwell/did-oliver-cromwell-ban-christmas

On Christmas dinner in Tudor and Stuart England: https://manyheadedmonster.com/2016/12/14/at-christmas-we-banquet-the-rich-with-the-poor-christmas-dinner-in-tudor-stuart-england/

On Father Christmas: https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2018/12/in-comes-i-old-father-christmas-surprising-history-of-a-christmas-icon/